The invention relates to the enhancement of text messages and multi-media text message by the inclusion of an option to invoke an electronic commerce transaction to purchase a gift card. Thus, the enhancement could be deployed within a system that provides for text messaging or instant messaging over mobile devices; and, more particularly, within a system and method for decoding and/or encoding such messages to determine key words therein and select video and/or audio content relating to the key words and transmitting the selected content to the recipient of the text message.
The advent of wireless devices has had a revolutionary impact on the way we communicate. In the pre-cellular world, communication was dominated by face-to-face, postal or telephone communications. However, having entered into the cellular age, one could argue that the dominant form of communication, especially on the thirty year old and younger crowd is through text messaging and instant messaging. Generally, the sender types a message into the device and sends it to the intended recipient. However, as data bandwidths have increased through the migration of cellular service, the richness of the content deliverable through the cellular network has also greatly increased. This technology migration has given rise to a variety of novel inventions that could not have been implemented absent the migration of the technology. The various inventions presented within the context of this application are similarly enabled due to the migration of cellular technology.
The use of text messaging as a form of communication, as previously mentioned, is a dominant form of communication. However, the use of text alone, especially in scenarios in which the number of characters is limited, can have a significant squelching on the effectiveness of the communication. As such, innovative people began utilizing clever character arrangements to convey emotion. For instance, the colon and closed parenthesis characters have been used to convey a smiling face “:)”. Further, the use of the colon and the open parenthesis has been used to convey a frowning face “:(”. These characters, included within a text message can then convey emotions such as the sender is happy, the sender is teasing, the sender is angry, the sender is sad, etc. Character formations such as this have become known as emoticons. Many other variations have also been introduced. This technology then migrated to the use of graphic images, which are able to convey a large variety of emotions, messages, etc. The present disclosure builds upon this technology, which has proven to be a viable and growing need in the art.